Loose Ends
by Lisera
Summary: Or four things Ianto did after. Spoilers for 2x13 Exit Wounds.


Loose Ends, or Four Things Ianto Did after Cardiff was Saved

A letter, an understanding , a promise, a question.

--

1.

_Mrs. Sato,_

_I regret to inform you that your daughter, Toshiko Sato, died on the line of duty this morning._

This was Jack's job, Ianto knew this. But Tosh had divulged, during a particularity morbid conversation the team had while Jack was away, that when she died, she'd want her mother to know.

_saving thousands of innocent lives in Cardiff, as well as her team mates,_

With a naughty grin, she had said that Ianto should be the one to deliver it, since her mother had always had a soft spot for young, handsome, Welshmen.

_who all miss her dearly, and will always regret her passing_.

Owen had complained why he shouldn't be the one to send it, because he is just as handsome and young and charming, even without the Welsh accent.

_During her time here, Toshiko was an invaluable member of the team who had saved us all countless times with her brilliance, resourcefulness, and profound technical knowledge._

Tosh had blushed.

_She was kind and caring, always there to offer a helpful hand or a patient ear whenever we needed it._

Gwen had rolled her eyes and told him off good naturedly, and they all had fun watching the riled up Owen spit out caustic comments about them all.

_She always gave others the benefit of doubt and never judged them for a single action._

Ianto had never told her how much that cup of coffee meant to him after Lisa died.

_She died a hero's death, and while we all mourn, we cannot imagine for her a more appropriate departure._

Ianto had said that he would be honoured to do fulfill her request.

_She was loved by those she loved, and she will be sorely missed as a team member, a friend, and a sister._

And so much more.

_Sincerely yours,_

_Ianto Jones, General Support_

Ianto will not send this, he knew this as well. Toshiko's mother was one of those who had died in the initial explosions in Cardiff.

Briefly, he wondered what she would have thought of him.

--

2.

Owen had no family outside of Torchwood, so Jack did not write the obligatory "we regret to inform you" letter.

Ianto didn't know Owen that well, so he didn't write the letter either.

He was, however, given the task of cleaning up Owen's flat, because Gwen got Tosh's and Jack…well, they were not sure what Jack was doing back at the hub.

Owen's flat was spacious and bright in the morning-after sun. The rays of soft light illuminated the floating dust motes, lazy and iridescent, and Ianto drew his splayed fingers through the air just to watch them swirl and chase each other in chaotic patterns.

There was a thin film of dust over everything; it seemed to Ianto that only some places were spared. And even though Owen supposedly lived in this entire flat, Ianto could see that it wasn't true at all; that Owen only lived in certain rooms; in certain parts of rooms.

Owen lived on the couch, where he had spent sleepless nights clicking from one TV channel to another, bored and restless but with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. Owen lived in the clothes tossed casually on the bedroom floor, the half-open closet door where shirts hung forlornly, abandoned. Owen even lived in the packets of half used suturing thread and opened rolls of linen bandages, where he had fixed himself up every morning before coming to work in a different type of morning ritual.

Ianto moved from room to room, methodically packing everything he could into white cardboard boxes. Three separate times, Ianto had to drop everything in his hands and press his forehead against the cool wall so that he could collect himself and finish his task. The fourth time it happened, he ran for the sitting room's high ceilings and wide windows like a man possessed and threw them open to swallow desperate breaths that managed to ease the pain in his chest.

Oh, _god_, and he didn't even _like_ Owen that much.

Owen's life fit neatly into two boxes, defined by dark pants and ugly shirts and a questionable taste in music. Ianto left the furniture and the stereo system where it was, because he's not responsible for them; but he did make Owen's bed, which was messy and rumpled and had possibly been left in that state for months now, if the amount of accumulated dust was any indication.

Ianto left the bedroom red eyed and desperate for fresh air.

The kitchen looked like nobody had set foot in it for months, which was probably the case. The cupboards were all empty, almost as if Owen had packed everything up after he had died the first time and chucked it all out; however, the paper-thin ceramic shards crunching under Ianto's shoes told another story.

The unplugged fridge told a similar one. Ianto didn't even bother to open it.

--

Ianto contemplated bringing up a third box for Owen's collection of outdated medical journals and books while running his fingers over the dusty volumes. He had thought of Owen as uncouth and uncultured for all his lack of manners, but Ianto was surprised by the volumes of dog-eared classics: _Paradise Lost_, _Wuthering Heights_, Dickens_, _Shakespeare.

_Canterbury Tales_ managed to make Ianto smile, because it was just the kind of humour Owen would have enjoyed. On the other hand, _Oedipus Rex_ made him raise an eyebrow, but he thought nothing more of it.

Brushing over a dusty, leather-bound volume, Ianto squinted at the worn gold stamped letters on its spine. _Wilfred Owen, the Collection_, it read, and Ianto couldn't help but pull it out for that familiar poem he had memorized all those years ago.

_Dulce et Decorum Est_, it read, but what had stopped Ianto wasn't the irony. Instead, it was a picture, tucked between the pages; a candid shot of Owen and a young woman, laughing together without a care in the world. Owen didn't have that furrow between his eyebrows then, or those lines on his forehead. He looked so refreshingly young and happy that Ianto knew immediately that it was taken before Torchwood.

He wondered where she was, and whether there was someone to send Owen's possessions to, after all. With definite more care, the books were packed into a third box, with the picture placed neatly on top.

--

After two hours, Owen's flat (_not home,_ he reminded himself, _hadn't been for a while now)_ was completely empty, austere in the way Ianto's wasn't, because he at least had coffee beans stored in his cupboard.

He was in no mood to go back to Torchwood right now, where the hub seemed too empty of people and too full of things unspoken. They were all carrying guilt over what had happened, thinking what they could have done differently. Jack was still repentant over every thing he'd done, beginning at Gray and ending at some point Ianto can't even begin to imagine. Gwen was haunted by Tosh's death; he knew that she regretted telling Tosh to stay put at the tech station. Ianto's personal demon was Owen, who he had sent to the nuclear plant; and all that's left of whom were three cardboard boxes and empty spaces where the dust didn't have a chance to settle yet.

Which is why he had to find that woman in the picture and give her what's left of Owen and _pray_ that she will treasure it more than some cold, deep vault in the Torchwood storage would.

The comm clicked in his ear and broke him out of his reverie.

"Yea," he said calmly, as if he hadn't just been on the verge of a breakdown, complete with heavy breathing and clenched fists, "Ianto here."

"Ianto." Gwen said, her voice watery and her words almost incomprehensible, "I don't think I can finish…" And whatever she wanted to add was lost in another fit of sobbing.

"I'll be right there." He told her, with one last glance at the smiling couple in the picture, "And it'll be okay."

--

3.

When Ianto arrived at Tosh's place (_though it's not that anymore_, he kept telling himself, _not anymore_), the door flung open and Gwen practically threw herself at him as she sobbed her heart out on his shoulder. He could feel her tears even through the layers of wool and cotton, but was content to give her the comfort she needed.

Gwen tried to talk to him, but her words were so obscured by her crying that Ianto could only pick out a few words. Regardless, it was enough for him to know what she was saying.

"'s not your fault," Ianto whispered to her as he cupped the back of her head with one hand and steered them both into the house, away from the curious eyes of the neighbours.

"But I didn't-" Gwen hiccupped, then pushed on without another breath, "-could have-"

"We're always in danger. It's Torchwood. Tosh knew what she was doing and she died the way she would have wanted. You heard her."

"But she…so young…barely-"

Tosh's house certainly had more personality than Owen's, not to mention that it was much cleaner. Stylish vases and random knick-knacks decorated every surface, yet the room never seemed clattered or gauche.

Within fifteen minutes of stepping into the house, Ianto knew exactly why Gwen had been so affected. It wasn't hard to figure out; the answer lay in every room. The cap of Tosh's toothpaste wasn't screwed on; she had left her medicine cabinet open; her bath towel was in a heap on the couch, where she must have tossed it last morning when she got ready for work. A piece of half-eaten toast laid abandoned on the kitchen counter; a cookbook splayed open, pages down on the coffee table; an empty mug placed in the sink, half filled with dishwater. Everything about the place indicated to them that Tosh had intended to come back here after work, to sleep in her own bed after a day of chasing aliens and monitoring rift activities.

A particularly loud sob from the bedroom drew Ianto to Gwen in a heartbeat. In her shaking hands she clutched a sheaf of cards from every occasion, both the traditional ones: birthday, Christmas, New Year's, and the Torchwood specific ones. There was the _We Survived the End of the World_ card (a scrap piece of napkin on which Owen had written "Glad you're alive, Tosh." and had drawn a cow that was supposed to represent Abaddon), the _Jack is Back Day_ card, (a piece of folded printer paper scribbled with everyone's fondest and not so fond memories of the months before), and the _Actually Harmless Day_ card, (when there were zero Rift activities for the entire day, and the team sat around drinking coffee and eating pastries and almost forgetting that they were top-secret, alien-hunting Torchwood agents.)

"They were on her nightstand." Gwen said as she opened each reverently, although Ianto doubted she could read anything through her tears, "Can we keep these, at least? I know…I know we're supposed to store away everything, but can we just-just-"

Gwen looked like she was three breaths away from a complete breakdown, and Ianto reached to pull her against him again to quell the tremors running through her frame.

Then, all of a sudden, Gwen took a shuddering breath and pulled away from Ianto to properly look him in the eye. "That fucking bastard." She hissed venomously, "We're going to kill him, aren't we, Ianto?"

"Yes." Ianto said, reaching down to squeeze her hand, their little fingers intertwining briefly for a fraction of a second, "We are, for everything."

--

4.

It was late when Ianto found Jack on his favourite rooftop, the thirty-story one near the hub that looked over the bay and the residential areas beyond. It was normally a breathtaking view; the entire city illuminated by multicoloured specks of light from streetlamps and houses and vehicles. Even so far up from the ground, Ianto had felt the way Cardiff had come alive after dark, especially in a hotspot near the Millennium Centre.

But it was different this time; sections of the city were now completely dark. Up here, Ianto thought that it almost looked like someone had taken a perforator and liberally punched out holes in the city; which was, frankly, not too far from the truth.

"Cardiff looks like she's mourning." Jack said without turning to look at Ianto.

"Yea," Ianto knew what Jack had meant. It's as if the clusters of darkness had spread to the entirety of Cardiff; made everything look dimmer than it actually was.

"Well, it's still better than the last time I was here."

"Personally, I liked it better then." Ianto said softly, "Kept me busy."

Jack didn't answer. Instead, he continued to look over the city while the air currents tugged and pulled relentlessly at his greatcoat, which made Ianto realize how absolutely still Jack was standing; feet planted firmly on the ledge, motionless like a statue.

It made Ianto afraid to approach him; because whereas Ianto had only gone a few hours without Jack, Jack had spent two millennia without Ianto, and he wasn't sure if that changed things.

"Ianto, I-" Jack said before his voice broke off. "I-"

He turned around swiftly, so fast that, for a second, Ianto was afraid that he would accidentally slip and fall. Before he even knew what he was doing, Ianto had stepped forward and reflexively reached out to grab onto Jack, who had righted himself, but somehow still managed to look like he'd be toppled over the ledge by a particularly strong gust of wind.

"Shh," Ianto whispered, wondering if Jack could hear him, seeing that the wind had picked up again. He stepped even closer to wrap his arms around Jack's waist and pressed his wind-chilled cheek against Jack's perpetually warm chest.

After a few moments, Ianto reluctantly stepped back. "It's fine now." He told him, his head tilted up to meet Jack's eyes; his hands still at the base of Jack's spine. "Just come down."

It was as if Jack had been waiting for that permission all along, and Ianto had no doubt that Jack would have stood there through the night if he hadn't come for him.

Once the other man had tumbled gracelessly down from the ledge, Ianto wasted no time to pull Jack against him, to let their bodies align and their chests press together. They were panting and gasping into each other's necks, more desperate than anything they had ever done before; and Jack's thigh was between his or maybe it was his between Jack's but he couldn't tell because this was more intimate than if their clothes were off, and Ianto was perfectly content to not know where he ended and Jack began.

"Do you ever think," Jack whispered to him after that moment of sheer desperation had passed, "that maybe we're doing them more harm than good?"

Ianto looked over Jack's shoulder; at the entire city splayed out below them, at the dark patches in her previously pristine blanket of lights. "The power was out last night." Ianto finally said, "Us Welsh're a resilient bunch."

"Good." Came the answer after a long pause; and if Jack drew his coat tighter around both of them afterwards, Ianto kept his comments to himself.


End file.
